Oirans are alive and well and living in Tokyo, but now they’re…men?

It’s not hard to draw a line from the oirans of the Edo Period to the geisha who took their place—both were women making a living entertaining wealthy men with music, dance and witty banter, both belonged to a “house” that served as their home, family, and booking agent, and both took traditional Japanese style and status to new heights. One took fashion to the extremes of flamboyance, while the other made elegance an art…

but the most fundamental thing they had in common is a business model that they still share today with some surprising successors.

It’s never been hard for men to buy female companionship at any time in history, anywhere in the world, but Japan has turned that proposition on its head

Welcome to the world of host clubs, the invitation-only bars where attractive young men…

pour champagne, light cigarettes and make every customer feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

Host clubs line the streets of red light districts like Tokyo’s Kabukicho…

and early in the evening, every street corner is bustling with hosts inviting Japanese women* into their bars.

Inside the luxe-looking club with its champagne towers and flattering lighting, their mission is to make every customer feel like the most attractive woman in the universe.

Hosts (and hostesses, in their female counterpart bars) are more like geisha than oirans, since their services explicitly stop short of sex work, but it turns out that what women will pay big money for a man who would probably never give her a second glance if he saw her on the street to look into her eyes and give her what women really want. He’ll ask about her day, offer a sympathetic shoulder or a listening ear, and ply her with drinks like only a professional with a stake in taking home a percentage of her bar bill can.

And make no mistake, that bar bill can be huge. A bottle of Dom that costs $100USD in the liquor shop around the corner will set a customer back $750 if it’s poured in a rockin’ club by a hottie host. That’s how top hosts at popular clubs can take home the equivalent of $40,000-$50,000…a month. (Yikes, does that give you a better idea of what kind of money oirans used to bring in for their pleasure houses, and why becoming a patron was such a flex for rich merchants starved for status?)

The dark side of the host business is that some of the women fall for their crush so hard, they end up in an impossible amount of debt, and the only way they can get out of it is to turn to sex work themselves.

I’d be very surprised right about now if you’re not wondering what kind of idiot would do that? What kind of moron would forget that they’re paying these guys to be nice to them? How can it just slip their mind that none of it is real? And these guys aren’t even attractive, by Western standards!

But I’ve been to a few host clubs (for serious book research purposes only, of course)…

and let me tell you, entering that world is like playing a video game or reading a good book. When you’re immersed in a good story, doesn’t your heart start pounding every time you scramble over the rooftop to get that assassin before he gets you, even though you know you’re sitting on your living room couch with your cat in your lap? These clubs are the same. Successful hosts are so good at making their customers suspend their disbelief (and reality itself) that it’s easy to be fooled into thinking they actually care about you. Like oirans, what they’re really selling is intimacy.

And because that’s something everyone agrees ought not to be for sale, hosts have taken the oiran’s place in the Floating World, front and center.

*I say Japanese women, because foreigners are most definitely not welcome at host clubs. If you’ve read The Samurai’s Octopus, you know why. But if you’re curious, here are the reasons. (Spoiler: it’s not because they don’t like us.) And here’s how I managed to sneak in despite my obvious handicap.

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Would you like to take a peek behind closed doors at an oiran’s pleasure house to see what it’s like?